Daisy Art Journal

Here is journal #2, available here.

I recently bought this giant stack of scrapbook paper and I love all of the patterns! It will probably last a million years, haha. There are so many I want to use for the inside of the journal covers but I can't imagine making that many journals. Who knows?



Tomorrow is the pricing changeover and I'm still a little unsure about it. It seems unanimous that no one is ever really sure about it and that it's okay. There are many things I want to do, and perhaps I am a bit overwhelmed by the idea that everything could work out the way I've always wanted it to.

Some day.

Sweet Lady Ginkgo Journal

I really enjoyed putting this book together. Yellow and red is a popular colour combination for me. 

 

Available here.

 

You know, I haven't seen too many ladybugs out this year. Is it still too early?

Just Birds

If anyone wants to see my "Good Morning" chickadee painting in person, head on down to the "Just Birds" show next month!

"Just Birds" Juried exhibition
Newton Cultural Centre
13530 72 avenue
Surrey, BC

June 3 - 30 

I got some supplies to make five more journals. I can't wait!

Pretty New Website

Oh. My. Goodness.

After much tweaking, and deleting and nitpicking I've finished decorating my own personal internet home!



Eeeee! I'm way more excited about it than I need to be. I can't explain it. I guess it's kind of like... committing to a path in life.

It's kind of like deciding exactly who I want to be and what I want to do with myself.

And it's a really scary thing for me to do: pretending to know what I'm doing. There is SO MUCH out there for me to learn (as evidenced by my recent pricing screw-up) and there are lots of things that could go wrong.

I want to hold on to this feeling for as long as I can!

Cutest thing ever

I just couldn't NOT share this. Usually it feels like my sister and I have been butting heads since she first learned to speak (she's now 12), but then adorable things like this happen and then I'm all like "d'awwww!"



I opened the tightly folded piece of paper and it was a drawing of a pegasus. In the bottom corner it reads: "I bet you could draw this better!".

I can't tell if she's embarrassed, or trying to be modest... It said it was a "dare" so is she asking me to send a drawing back? I don't know.

(Tell me what you think in the comments!)




And so then she goes on to tell me that she did well in track-and-field and sent me her 3rd place ribbon. 

Sent it to me.

What.

I... I don't even know.

Maybe I'm looking too hard at this and seeing a lot of messages that aren't actually there, but it kind of feels like someone just handed me a pouch full of precious gems or something.

So What the Heck am I Doing Anyway?

It may seem like I am having a non-productive, lazy week, but the truth is I've been busy and excited about the idea of finally putting together a real website with my own domain name! I'm a little scattered all over the internet as you can probably tell from all the big links in the sidebar (portfolio here, shop there, videos somewhere else...).

I've been using my blog as my "central hub", but don't really want to have blogger links on my business cards, you know?

I'm currently trying out Weebly because it is popular and free, and so far I am getting a kick out of it. If you know CSS you will have an advantage. I don't, so it took me all day and a LOT of trial and error to get something I liked! The drag & drop feature is lovely, however limited. For the cost, it's quite fantastic as far as I can tell.



Okay, here's the other thing.

If you follow me on facebook,  you might have noticed that I have also had pricing on the mind this week. I have been in "research mode" (before the website play distracted me) because I was beginning to think my pricing is off.

It's not a good thing to stick out of a gallery show in terms of pricing, you kind of want to be in the same range as others in your group. Your "group" being artists who have similar work and similar experience as you.

I have to say that researching pricing has been one of the most frustrating searches I've had to do. There are no concrete answers, and sometimes it feels like nothing is correct... that's normal. But there are some straight forward guidelines out there that really help, even if they are just guidelines.


What does all this mean?

It means that I'm not pricing myself for the market, which does a disservice to my local artists and, of course myself.

It means that some time soon, I'm going to have to raise my prices on my original artworks (I haven't decided on the journals yet). I still want my work to be available to as many people as possible, so I will make more 8x10 reproductions available of recent work (I've been a little behind on that, sorry).  I won't be increasing the price of those.

I'm telling you this ahead of time just in case anyone is waiting to purchase later on. I haven't figured everything out yet, but I can agree not to make any changes until at least June 1.

...

Whew! Hopefully when I get all of this fun stuff settled I can go back to painting! And start a new art journal too. :)

Journal Post 5/22/12

 Just finishing up the Life Like Weeds journal! I had a weird nagging feeling the other night, like all of this stored energy was building up pressure inside of me and I had to get it out. So I ended up finishing the last few layouts of this journal.



When I fill them with words, I'll do a journal flip of it.

I'm kind of nervous about going back to the blank journals. I'm pretty sure I don't want to do the scrappy kind again because of how limiting it felt with the chosen surface materials. In short, glossy magazine pages don't work for much of anything. At all.

Have you ever tried the scrappy format? How did it work for you?

 

It was nice having a base to start out on (such as this cake photo on the last page), so that I could focus more on the journaling than the "art" so to speak, but I am itching to play with sprays and stencils again! I also have a canvas I'd like to "do-over". I'd like to make a few more journals maybe. 

Ever have a rush of desires and responsiblities all come out at once that you don't really know what to do at all?

29 Faces - 5/18/12

Okay I admit it, I'm not taking the 29 Faces challenge very seriously. I rarely do, because there isn't a whole lot of pressure from anywhere to do well. Heh. 



I skipped a few days. There seems to be a second gap that I don't remember (or did I just misplace the drawings?) but there is no loaded gun forcing me to care about that so I won't.


Okay, I've changed my mind about posting the other couple of pics because they're just lazy and I need to try a bit harder. It happens. I accept a project on a whim and then lose interest because it's just not interesting enough! But I should promise myself that by the end of the month I will make an honest effort at least once. How about that?

And then when that's finished I will finally get some more supplies to make a few more journals! For every journal sold, that's like, five new journals I can make! Thanks guys!

Journal Post 5/17/12

Here's a simple journal layout. Normally near the end of a journal I just breeze through it, but I haven't been interested in making art lately.



I have this one tube of super thick paint that is a lot of fun to push through stencils with a palette knife. Oddly, this is the only colour that had this thickness. I'm not sure where it even came from, but it's almost gone now.

 

I've been feeling very much in a rut with things, and even the idea of getting a car isn't helping very much when I can't go anywhere. So there is definitely this feeling of being trapped (isn't it always this way? heh), where nothing can possibly get better unless I change this one huge seemingly unchangeable thing (day job).

 

And so making art has fallen by the wayside just a bit.

In the meantime, my S.O. gave me this cute little notebook he found abandoned in a locker and I've decided to fill it with research. I am digging these videos by Marie Forleo, although they address quite specific situations!



I'm also learning about pricing art from this workshop by Alyson B Stanfield which is pretty useful. It bothers me that I didn't get this much information from college which cost considerably more than thirty dollars. A lot of this comes down to personal research which I will have to do on my own, but it's SO NICE to have a guideline. Seriously, I am psyched about this!

Sketchbook Project 2012 Vancouver

I went downtown to check out the Sketchbook Project tour and was impressed! Of course, I'd forgotten how much of a nightmare downtown Vancouver can be for a socially awkward person, but it's kind of fun how much of a completely different world those streets can be. On one hand, the city is kind of cool and beautiful. On the other hand, I can't quite get past how dilapidated everything is.

So I don't really like going there.

But I'm glad I did.



The show was all very organized and controlled. A computer sets up a cute little library card (pictured above) and another computer let me search through the database of available sketchbooks by pretty much every category I could ever imagine!  I just kept hitting "random".



At a desk I wait a short time while the librarians flit from shelf to shelf until one of them arrives with two sketchbooks to peruse. It was fun! I think it would have been more fun if we had free access to the shelves instead of the 2-at-a-time process, but they have to keep that shiz under control I guess. There are so many books, I think mine has only been checked out once per city!



They also had a tour mail table with long, blank postcards and jars of Prismacolor products. I doodled some flowers onto mine with a few markers. I really really liked "Mocha Dark" so I pocketed it. I wrote a note on the other side and stuck it in an envelope. I got to choose a charming "stamp" to put on the envelope to indicate which city I wanted it to go to (look out, Atlanta!), and chose a sealed postcard to keep in exchange for mine (from Portland).



So if you're in Vancouver today (or in town for the other cities on the tour), you should totally check it out! It was certainly more fun than I had expected.


(except for all of that public transportation, I can easily do without that)

Create Beauty

Here is something I was reluctantly working on last week, a bit here and there. Productivity has been way low and confusion has been way up. It comes and goes.



I didn't really know what I was doing with this, to be honest. If I had to choose a single phrase to describe my art, it would be this. They aren't all just "pretty pictures" to me; most of them are actually short stories. There is already so much pain and sadness in the world, that I don't feel the need to contribute with dark, bleary imagery.



It's not to encourage everyone to be blissfully ignorant of the world, but rather to avoid drowning in it. It's difficult to help fix things when you're in so deep that you can't even help yourself let alone everyone else. I refuse to feel shame for painting with pretty colours :3



So I filled up some space with some clovers and feathers, but it started to feel a bit insincere so I stopped. What should I do with it? Is there something I could add? Does it simply need a trim? Should I just leave it be?

Second Cafe Trip

Today was pretty much what I wish every day was like. I was doodling with the prismacolor marker at the cafe and I think I've decided what I will do for the Mystery Project. Nothing profound has happened during these visits. I am usually quite discrete about the doodling, a little embarrassed about being outside. But then after a while I actually began to crave human interaction. It was the darndest thing. Next thing I knew, I was really enjoying the cool breeze just lounging around on the sidewalk, birds nibbling seed underfoot.

And so I gathered enough courage to go get a haircut.



And go on a hunt for cat grass! Milo loves the stuff. 

And now I'm hanging out with a lifelong friend, shopping for a car. It really is a fantastic sort of day.

29 faces - 5/10/12

A week in and I'm already getting tired of the faces. Not so much the subject matter but the fact that I end up putting it before other things I might want to do. Which also happens to be late at night at the last minute, ha!



Next week, Sketchbook Project 2012 is coming to Vancouver! I will probably show up on Tuesday to see what all of the fuss is about.



When I went to pick up a frame for my chickadee painting I came across some tiny decorative tapes and a set for five bucks! It's probably not really worth five bucks, but since I get to bypass shipping charges I decided to try it out. So far it feels just like all of the other washi tapes so I'm pretty pleased.



The colour/patterns were pretty much irresistable.

Could this be the start of finding decorative tape locally? I really hope so! This is a Recollections low-end brand, so if it starts showing up in Walmart I would be doubly pleased.

Journal Post 5/8/12

Feeling a bit slow lately so here's a basic journal spread. I'm soooo close to finished with this journal! I think there are only 2.5 spreads left. After that I'll probably go back to the kind I sell in my shop, unless something new catches my fancy.



I'd like to start a new thing today but I feel like things are getting away from me just a little bit. My chickadee painting hasn't been framed yet for a show happening in three weeks, I haven't yet applied for Arts2012 and it's about that time of year I send cookies and gifts to my sister.



I'm usually so organised. Ha ha!



Today I'm just chilling out, tidying up, planting my new plants (strawberry, tomato, and some kind of clover). Perhaps it's time to get that frame. Perhaps it's time to make those cookies. Perhaps I should decide whether or not I'm going to replace my phone since I lost it yesterday!!!!! Sheesh.

29 Faces 5/6/12

Dumping some faces here. There were a couple of days I simply did not want to draw. Above is a random, generic face that I doodled onto my journal.



Cats have faces too! Though they usually make more sense than this one.



Self portrait from a teenage photo of me skipping rocks.



Another random photo (of someone I hardly know).


BTW: Thank you for your lovely comments that have been (or have yet to be) left. They are appreciated :)

Journal Post 5/4/12

I watched a video on journaling deep this morning about playing with blocks of colour and I decided to try it. It's not as great on glossy magazine paper (never again?) but it wasn't too terrible this time.



When the paint was dry I went over some things with my box of stinky markers.

It seems like a good exercise when you really don't feel like doing much of anything, and it's true, though I can't say that my imagination started kicking in during the process. It's been a really low ride the last month or so and it kinda feels like some of my brain connections are dead.

 

Oh man so yesterday I assembled a cake, and because our friends are all vegans I had to use vegan frosting (which is really just vegan fats mixed with a ton of sugar) and it was a total jerk! I'm so accustomed to the shiny, fluffy meringue buttercreams that switching to american style buttercream was so not cool at all.



It was like covering the cake with wall plaster! And all of my piped roses looked shredded and when I put them down they would sort of settle into unidentifiable blobs. Hate hate hate.

Pretty cool how it dries into a crunchy thing, though. I like that.

Faces 5/2/12

Here's the face I did for yesterday. I'm having one of those late mornings where I really don't feel like doing anything.

So I'm working mostly from photos I have around the house because I need practice with realism! I think this one turned out closer to reality than the first one. Maybe it's because her face is actually right-side-up? Hahaha.

It's really hard to turn off that part of the brain that wants to tell me what I'm looking at, instead of telling me what I see! 

This week I decided I would begin a sort of month-long experiment; once a week I will go and do some kind of art in a "public" space (shops aren't really considered to be public, but we'll go with it) and see what happens.

Me, I am a shy type who always hated when people watched me draw things. It's a natural thing, I don't know anyone who actually likes to have a live audience.  Yesterday I bought a sugary drink and claimed a table near the window and doodled for a bit. Two interesting observations:

1) It was surprisingly crowded and full of people just milling about and socializing. Extremely socializing. The weirdest part to me, was how professionally dressed they all were. It was, like, 9am or something. Business dress but no one was working. Where do I sign up?

2) Sit around long enough and you'll end up with free samples of things! Look at that baby frappe up there! So cute! I am also so incredibly buzzed from the coffee and the sugar that everything is an exclamation!



So anyway, if you ever follow me on the facebook, you might know that I signed up for some kind of Mystery Project from the Co-op. They send out a prismacolour marker and participants make some kind of art with it and leave it in a public place for some stranger to find. I haven't heard much online from other participants except that someone got Cinnamon Toast colour. Lucky! I got Crimson Red.



I have no idea what I'm going to make with it. Even less idea of where I will leave it. I don't much want to litter, and also this is Surrey. I don't think anyone will find a drawing and go "omg this is cool I'm going to keep this, I'M HAPPY!" I'm pretty sure a more realistic response would be "What is this? Who left this here? Into the recycling bin with you!" Which is kind of a shame. 

It's such a vague project and the theme I got was also so incredibly uninspiring ("The Future of the Year" - wtf does that mean?) so I decided just to sit and play with the pen and some watercolour paper.

Which, btw, is probably not a good paper for markers. It sucks the ink right out of that marker.

 

I love the brush tip because of how "stiff" it is, I guess. I've had brush markers in the past that were just too wobbly, but this one is pretty easy to control. It has a medium tip on the other side as well.

I made a large zentangle and now I don't know what to do with it.